


So Grief Gives Way to Grief

by rostropovich



Category: The Iliad - Homer
Genre: Angst, Depression, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Hero Worship, we are all disappointed in paris but none more than the thousands that died bc of him so
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-19
Updated: 2018-12-19
Packaged: 2019-09-22 23:31:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,676
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17069279
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rostropovich/pseuds/rostropovich
Summary: The fall of Hector is when Paris' Ilium is truly lost.





	So Grief Gives Way to Grief

Paris jolts awake in the darkness. Whatever he had dreamed of slips quick from his mind, as insubstantial and fickle as sand running from between his fingers. He props himself up, chest rising and falling, eyes already adjusted to the thin, silvery light of the moon that casts a nearly green film over everything it touches. For just a fleeting, rare moment, Paris forgets that Hector is dead, cut down by  _ Aristos Achaion _ . 

The memory crashes upon him like a great tidal wave, rendering his body, his soul useless, the burning finality of it choking him, drowning him. To think of Hector, of brave, just Hector, as wiped away from this world, without even a body to remember him by, is nearly blasphemy. He had been saturated in Paris’ life and now that he is gone, Ilium might as well be black with the remnants of siege fires.

The world is silent, still, and for a haunting moment, he feels very alone. In many ways, he is now. Ilium bustles with soldiers and their entourage, and even more have flocked since the death of their prince, and yet Paris stands among them as a spectre. People speak of him as if he’s not there.  _ Fónos adelpheós _ is what they call him. Killer of brothers. 

The ground is cold on his feet as he rouses from bed and dresses. The silk smooth fabric feels foreign on his warm skin that has only been marred by the pock marks of youth, not yet decorated by coarse hair and battle scars. He opens the lid of the wooden chest at the foot of his bed and takes the bow that lies there.

Its double concaves are smooth, the perfect curves carved from soft, malleable cypress and the sinewy tendons of horses. An invocation to Apollo has been burned into the bow. Paris runs his fingers over the carvings, as he had many times before. He takes the hide quiver filled with long, true arrows, each adorned with an obsidian arrowhead he had made himself. 

Paris breathes thinly and slips out of the bedchamber like a shadow. He is a stranger in his own home, the chiaroscuro of sharp torches and even sharper shadows yawning and leaning at his very presence. The halls are empty, filled only by the heavy silence that looms over Ilium like a plague. 

He goes to a peristylium ringed with an arcade of tall, pale columns stretching up to the stars. Along the far wall of the stoa is a line of targets covered in burlap, minimal and functional. The bow is light in hand, though the grip gives a sense of stability and reference, the leather giving some beneath his hand. His other hand takes an arrow by the silky eagle fletching and nocks it in the bow. He draws it back to his cheek, the tension of the bow straining the leanness of his body, his arms and back. It takes him no time to release the arrow. He does so on his exhale and watches, disinterested, as it lodges itself in the target, a little to the left, directly in the jugular. 

Paris imagines the arrow piercing the throat of Achilles, maiming him. It would take numerous more arrows to fell a man drugged by the adrenaline of battle, and even more to do slay the son of a deity. It is for the best, Paris thinks, that it is that way; he wants Achilles to know who cuts him down. And though it is a cowardly way to do so, there is only one thing worse than being a coward--being killed by one. He will wear his cowardice as his armour, then.

Paris does not know how many hours pass, how many arrows he loosens, how many burlap sacks burst open with sand that bleeds away like life into the grass and flowers of the courtyard. His muscles begin to twitch and grow flimsy in their exhaustion. Cramps seize the joints of his fair fingers, sweat skates down the smooth dip of his back. He fires an arrow and it trembles in the dirt. 

He presses his forearm against one of the thick columns of the cloister until red lines appear on his flesh and his skin peels. Paris rests his hot forehead against his flesh and gasps for breath. He scrambles beneath the weight of foolishness; it seizes him suddenly, choking him tighter and tighter until he feels his body will burst. 

Hector is dead, gone, extinguished from this world as if he was only a flicker in the great scheme of things. No amount of spilled blood can be paid to bring him back. There is nothing Paris can do. Suddenly, the cold bite of the blade seems a mercy to this withering pain that rots him from the inside out like a blight upon a tree, colouring him grey and useless, parts of him decaying and falling away just to show that there is nothing there anymore. He wishes he had died at the hands of Menelaus, for at least he would wait to see his brother again in the kingdom of Hades, and they could be children once more. 

He sobs beneath the stars, slipping down until he cowers against the column. 

Paris’ eyes open to the sound of a slow gait walking along the cloister. It quiets as the steps walk on the soft, cool dirt. He knows it is his father before he sees him. Part of him knows he should get up from the ground, and yet, Paris knows there’s nothing he could do to disappoint him more. 

The sky has lightened a shade to a the darkest blue, the stars still twinkling against the smooth silk of the fading night. The peristyle is black and prominent against the celestial sphere, as is the moon, beginning to fall to the west. Priam sits across from his son upon a stone bench. Paris watches his eyes slide over the bow resting in the grass and the target of perfect kills. It is easy to see thoughts flicker through his old eyes, but what he thinks of, Paris cannot say. 

The boy picks himself up from the cool ground and takes his bow. He feels flimsy, as cold and feathery as ash; nothing burns inside him now. An owl soars over the open courtyard, nearly silent save the soft whisper of wind over extended wingtips, bristling over feathers. 

“It should have been me,” says Paris blatantly as he stands before his father. Priam glances up at him with vacant eyes.

“Yes,” he agrees with a weary strain to his voice that unnerves Paris to his core; weakness was never a trait he saw in his father. “It should have.” They exist in a long bout of silence, permeated only by the haunting howl of wind through the empty halls like the ghosts of their ancestors long past, mourning the loss of their prince. “You are but a boy, Paris.”

“It matters not what I am, simply what I have done.”

Priam grunts. “This is also true.”

“Ilium will fall because of me.”

The King is quick to correct him. “To put the entirety of the blame upon you is unjust; Menelaus is dead and so is Hector. If this truly was a war for the Queen of Sparta, it would have ended. Hector is dead, and so Agamemnon and Achilles have their revenge. And yet, my son, they still reside upon our beaches. Your actions simply ignited a fire that was going to burn either way.” He mulls the words of his lord - father over; Paris is too old, too damned to be coddled with falsities anymore, and he can see the logic in it. He knows little of Agamemnon, but his ambitions define him. Ilium was on his list of future conquests, but it was Paris who opened the gates of Troy for him. Suddenly, Priam breaks the heavy silence of the peristyle once more, rousing the boy from his thoughts.“Paris?” He says quietly. 

The boy’s gaze lifts from the ground as if the weight of his shame is more formidable than the weight Atlas bears. 

“I am no Oracle, and there is no supposing the intentions of the Fates, but truly, if you died at the hands of Menelaus, do you believe that Hector would have let him live?”

“Yes,” Paris says bitterly. He draws another arrow back, lean muscles flexing with the bow. The feathers anointing the arrow whistle as it ghosts through the air, and a resounding  _ thunk _ echoes through the stoa once the head meets the bullseye. With every shot, Paris’ cowardice is only further solidified. “He was an honourable man.”

“He loved you.”

“He would not have let that love soil the codes of war.”

Priam scrutinises him closely. “Where was this wisdom in the halls of the King of Sparta, I wonder? You have two faces, Paris, and neither of them are handsome.” The insult pricks him, but it doesn’t strike deep, and it does not last. Such remarks seem trivial now. 

“You will soon see I have a third, and it is the ugliest of them all.” That, perhaps, is what Paris thinks would be Hector’s greatest disappointment of all. Their days had once been spent taming the wild horses that roamed the Trojan plains, spearing fish during the high tide, watching the stars swirl across the year long sky. The life of a warrior was a burden upon Hector’s shoulders, no matter how his skill preceded him; anyone who knew him truly could see as much. It was the lot he had to pay for the sake of those he loved, but truly, he only wished to be riding horses. If he could not have such a life for himself, then he would grant it for his favourite brother. And all the while, Paris trailed after him, vying for his favour, his attention, his wisdom; all Paris ever wanted was to be just like Hector.


End file.
